


Epilogue II

by GwenoftheRoundTable



Category: Collar X Malice
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, my heart is bleeding from that ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 22:44:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11861172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenoftheRoundTable/pseuds/GwenoftheRoundTable
Summary: His days passed in a blur of gray shadows on white walls.





	Epilogue II

**Author's Note:**

> ... Apparently this is the first AO3 work for Collar X Malice. I cranked this out in a few hours about two days after I finished Shiraishi's ending, because I realized I was still upset about it. It's not perfect by any means and there are probably minor errors here and there, but it helped me feel a little better.
> 
> Originally posted on tumblr.

His days passed by in a blur of gray shadows on white walls.

It was amazing how much time could pass so quickly when you had so little to do, and amazing how dreaming could help to pass the hours. Meals broke up the time somewhat, but he ate mechanically. Even after breaking out of his brainwashed state, the hunger to  _live_ had done nothing for his actual appetite and poor eating habits.

The police had chosen to keep him in Shinjuku, if for no other reason than to keep him close to the heart of where the incidents were, for monitoring. Apparently they thought there was something to learn from him, especially since Zero hadn’t had a chance to erase his memories like many of the other executors.

The first thing they’d done, before even assigning him a room, was remove the chip in his neck. The doctor had offered an anesthetic, but he’d refused. It was painful in a way that was cathartic, the sensation of the tiny metal object sliding from under his skin feeling like a thousand-pound weight lifted from his chest.

And just like that, he was no longer number 14. He took a good, long look at his face in the mirror while the doctor bagged the microchip, looked at the clean bandage on his neck, and felt like he was looking at his face for the first time. A new man.

_My name is Kageyuki Shiraishi_ , he thought, tracing his fingers over the place where the chip once was,  _and I am a free man_.

Unsurprisingly, the next place they whisked him off to was an interrogation room. Also unsurprisingly, the person interrogating him was Minegishi. He promised to talk on one condition: Ichika would be on the other side of the glass. She needed to hear this. She needed to know.

She deserved to know  _him_.

However, he couldn’t risk their romantic involvement being exposed. It would be bad for Ichika if that went public, even though many members of the police likely suspected it. They would suspect it even more after hearing about the year spent underground, rehabilitating Ichika from her stint with the poison. Keeping a distance would be the best way to help her now, and later he might request a visit from his former partner without suspicion.

Minegishi agreed to his condition without hesitation. When he asked for proof that she was out there, the guard at the door told him she said “fourteen.”  _Good enough_.

No doubt they wanted to know about Adonis—current state of the organization, future plans, backup plans—but in order for them to understand how Adonis worked, they first needed to understand him. They had to hear the structure of the organization, the training, the main goals, everything that had been pounded into his head by force or coercion for his entire life.

He started at the very beginning.

Little boys and girls, growing up without parents under the strict eye of Adonis leadership. Microchips implanted in small necks, sending messages, causing pain. Small hands trained to fight, trained to kill, trained to  _die_. Fear ran rampant until all the fear had bled out into exhaustion and compliance, and then there was only the mission. Nothing and no one else was important to them any longer. They lost track of which faces died on missions over time, only noticing the gaps in the string of digits as the numbers grew longer and the bodies piled higher.

No hesitation. No remorse.

Just the trigger.

Just the blade.

He talked a little longer about his personal history, moving through training and how Adonis had picked him for this particular job, but then decided it was enough for the day. He couldn’t see Ichika on the other side of the glass, but it was likely traumatizing for her to have to hear. Minegishi agreed to stop for the day, as long as Shiraishi would willingly return the next day. He had no qualms about that. It was better to get everything in the light now. After speaking for so long about so many things he’d never talked about before, it felt like a strange kind of exhaustion had settled deep into his bones.

Before taking him back to a cell, they asked him if he wanted to keep the name.

_Kageyuki Shiraishi_.

He hadn’t picked it, and he was welcome to choose something else. For a moment, he considered it, but this name had become a part of him. Over the past ten years, he’d become more Shiraishi than number 14, and now he was rather attached.

~xXx~

After he’d been back and forth between interrogation and the cell for a week, someone came to open the door. He didn’t remember their name, but the guard’s face looked familiar. Something twitched in the back of his mind, a memory of telling people that names were not important enough to be remembered. Funny, how she’d managed to brand her name on his heart despite that.

Shiraishi expected to be taken to interrogation again, as he still hadn’t quite finished but instead they took him to a room with couches and armchairs, where a woman with a notebook sat waiting.

_Ah_. He should have expected his.

Actually, it was a wonder they hadn’t done this sooner, but apparently the information he could provide about Adonis was more important, even a year after the fact. Every natural instinct in him recoiled at the idea that someone was about to analyze him in the same way that he analyzed others as a criminal profiler, but the fact was… they were right. Spending over twenty years in a brainwashed state couldn’t be good for his mental health, and it was time to swallow his pride and let himself be helped.

If it could help right even a fraction of the wrongs he’d committed, it was well worth it. If it would help get him back to Ichika in a more stable place, it was worth it.

So she asked questions, and he talked.

It was at least an amusing kind of back and forth, even if it felt a little empty—more like large cats circling each other, waiting to see who would be the first to pounce. She analyzed him and he analyzed her, taking in her subtle little quirks and reactions like only someone with his particular skill set could. As a psychologist, she was better at hiding them than most, but not good enough.

For Ichika’s sake, though, he held back most of his commentary. In his mind’s eye he saw the amusing way her nose wrinkled when she was angry, the pink blush on her cheeks when she was flustered, and the setting sun reflected in her eyes when she kissed him.

“Where do you go when you look like that?” the doctor asked one day, momentarily putting down her pen.

Shiraishi thought for a long moment.

“Somewhere better.”

~xXx~

Ichika visited once a week now.

Judging by the questions during his therapy session, they still hadn’t managed to figure out how he broke out of the brainwashing or if he was just faking that he had. Shiraishi knew enough about human behavior to send any signals and act any way he wanted, but brainwashing was an exception. He wouldn’t have been able to fake it if someone from Adonis gave him orders.

Unfortunately, no one was about to test that theory. Since Rei and Zero were both dead and gone, and any surviving higher-ups were doubtless showing no signs of regret or remorse, activating a dangerous brainwashing trigger wasn’t high on the police department’s to-do list. However, his visits with Ichika seemed to be helping his case.

It was still through a clear acrylic divider with a guard present, but at least he got to see her. The psychologist no doubt had figured out the extent of their relationship during their chats every other day, but had been kind enough to suggest only that Shiraishi was missing his partner. She’d even been kind enough to suggest that a visit might be good for Ichika, too, since she’d been around only one person for an entire year and might have a little trouble adjusting back to her normal life. He didn’t know if that was true or a premise, but Ichika was strong. She would be alright, even if it took a while for her to get back on her feet.

The first time he saw her again, Shiraishi thought her smile was like the sun, and it made his chest ache. He could see her trying to hold back tears, but for once couldn’t point out if they were tears of joy or sorrow. Perhaps it was both, though that wasn’t necessarily the most logical conclusion.

“What’s going on out there?”

“It feels strange to say it, but… not much,” she admitted, shrugging. “There are still a few calls here and there with the last of the firearms cleanup, so they haven’t completely opened the city up yet, but traffic from outside is slowly being allowed in. Takeru cracked open a lot of data transferred from the Adonis servers by one of the executors before his memory was lost, so we’ve got names to go by to round up people now. Otherwise it’s just old ladies crossing the street, loud neighbors, drunk and disorderlies…”

“Cats stuck in trees?” Shiraishi teased.

“Cats stuck in trees,” she confirmed. Her eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, and I’ve been checking on the strays. There are more of them than before, so I guess some of them had kittens…” She trailed off and her eyes shifted downwards, fidgeting in her seat. He knew that look, and it was easy to guess what she was hiding.

“How many did you adopt?” he asked, a real smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Two,” she admitted. “It’s just that they were so cute, and they were the smallest in the litter, and the apartment is really lonely when Kazuki’s out playing with the band most nights.”

Of  _course,_  his kindhearted girl would do something like that. In fact, she probably would have adopted them all if she could, but that wasn’t realistic. Cats were solitary creatures, and it made them good companions for someone with as unpredictable a schedule as Ichika’s, but her apartment was only so big. A sudden image of coming home to Ichika with two cats meowing around her feet seized him. Maybe he could learn to cook, and they’d be able to make dinner together…

“Shi—Shiraishi? Did you hear me?” Ichika was staring from the other side of the divider. He blinked, fighting back a slight redness in his cheeks.

“Sorry. What was that?”

“I asked if you wanted to name one,” she said softly, blushing slightly.

“I…” he paused. The strays had always been numbers, just like he was a number. The thought crossed him that in that sense, Ichika had adopted three strays into her home. Perhaps this was a chance to turn over a new leaf for himself, and an opportunity to think about a better future.

“Mikomi,” he said decisively.

“Okay.” Ichika nodded, and the look in her eyes felt like it could heal his heart.

“And… do you think you could call me Kageyuki?” he asked slowly. No one had ever really addressed him by his new first name before. There wasn’t ever anyone on close enough terms. Ichika seemed surprised, but smiled.

“Of course.” A pause. “Kageyuki.”

The name sounded like home as it tumbled from her lips.

~xXx~

According to the guards, since the police could extract his microchip while all data remained intact, transmission data could be used to trace others with the same implants. Prior microchip extractions had yielded no data since it crashed when the executors’ memories were erased. There was no doubt at all in Shiraishi’s mind that Takeru was responsible for this development, but he kept that to himself. With luck, and with Zero dead and gone, there was a real possibility they could track down the other men and women who had grown up in a brainwashed state and begin to rehabilitate them.

And they wanted his help.

Six months into his sentence, his therapy was going well and he seemed to be stable enough to re-introduce into society. The severity of deciding the exact length was… complicated. After all, he was a member of a terrorist group, but he’d also helped to shut down that same terrorist group. He’d murdered a member of the group, which, had it been on the job and under threat, might have gotten him a commendation rather than a sentence. However, he’d also been a mole and fed crucial police information to Adonis… while he was brainwashed.

It was a complicated situation.

Shiraishi was of the opinion that there was still no excuse for his actions and they needed to be atoned for, but there was nothing he could do to bring back the lives that Adonis took away. There was nothing that could make Rei Mikuni’s heart beat again. What was done was done, and he would bear the pain of that for the rest of his life. Right now, the goal was to learn how to live with that, how to function without the threat of Adonis looming over his shoulder, and to become as much of a functioning member of society as he possibly could.

In the end, the solution was formally announced as a relatively short prison term for the circumstances, to be supplemented with intensive therapy and rehabilitation from brainwashing, as well as participating in community service.

Clearly, “community service” meant that the police force was well aware that Shiraishi was the only person to ever break out of Adonis’s brainwashing. As soon as he was emotionally stable enough, they needed him to help with others who were under the same brainwashing conditions. The problem with this was that he wasn’t completely certain how he’d broken out of it, only that his love for Ichika had something to do with it. Without some kind of powerful conviction or intense therapy, or possibly both, it would be extremely difficult for these men and women to lead a normal life.

The psychologists hadn’t made any progress on breaking through the brainwashing, mostly because even though some of the people had been in custody for nine months (their implanted chips were proof enough to hold them), they refused to talk about the methods used. Shiraishi’s willingness to speak had led them to start making progress, and they hoped that with time and his help, many of them would be able to make a full recovery.

Shiraishi was allowed to talk to some of the people that had already been brought in. He knew their faces, knew their numbers. It was like being doused in cold water when they called him by his number, and like a knife to the chest when they realized he’d betrayed Adonis. He didn’t dare tell them why, just in case. The only reason Shiraishi let slip was that he found something he wanted to live for, rather that something he’d been trained to die for.

Though Shiraishi himself hadn’t made a full recovery, he was making excellent progress. It was easier to talk with his psychologist now, easier to let himself feel things without feeling like a broken man. Seeing Ichika once a week through the acrylic glass was a sweet kind of agony, thinking of how much he felt that they were both growing closer… and growing apart. It was a strange feeling, but underlying it all was the deep-set faith in her, and the conviction that once this was over, he couldn’t wait to fall in love with her again.

~xXx~

The endgame solution was a halfway house for rehabilitating Adonis members. Once psych evals met a certain standard and the Shinjuku police believed them ready, individuals recovering from brainwashing took a room in a house outside the city. The police worked to set them up with a basic job, and put them on a path towards living like a normal citizen. Shiraishi was a major part of the plan to help set up the program, working with the psych department to help talk to the recovering people and ease them into the world. The concept also included the executors that had lost their memories, and any of Adonis’s higher-ups discovered to be part of the brainwashing program.

Shiraishi also took part in the halfway house plan. In fact, he was the first test subject, and his test started almost two years after he came back above ground. However, since they hadn’t established the house yet, they gave him an apartment under surveillance across the street from the station. The downside of this was that he was still under strict observation at all times, and this was only probational leave. He was allowed a cell phone, but all communication was monitored. Not that Shiraishi could blame them. For all intents and purposes, he was still a criminal. He just happened to be a very  _unusual_  criminal.

The upsides far outweighed the downsides, though. He had a job at the station as a consultant on Adonis cleanup, which was an upside since he was still able to do what he did best. Granted, it was on a smaller scale under heavy supervision, but it was a real job that let him slowly gain credibility again. Even after the city had been re-opened and the quarantine shattered, there were still aftereffects to deal with, not to mention chasing down the last of the stragglers who might want to restart the organization elsewhere. Like it or not, the police needed his skills as a profiler and his experience as someone inside Adonis. The psych department also needed him as they prepared to full-scale the halfway house, and he was occasionally asked to sit in on group therapy sessions with some of the ex-Adonis recruits. At first he found it nothing but annoying, the only slight amusement being that he could very easily tell when the others were lying or attempting to skirt around a subject—there were a few nasty calls that resulted in him not being invited back for a couple of months—but eventually he came to almost enjoy seeing the progression of their mental health.

The other, bigger upside was that he got to see Ichika again. Not often, and not for long, but he could see her, and not from the other side of a divider. He could  _touch_  her. The first day back, he  _may_  have taken a roundabout way to lunch in hopes of passing her in the hall. It turned out that his hopes were well-founded. It took her a split second to see him, and then she stopped cold in her tracks, the stack of reports she was carrying tumbling from her hands.

“K—Kageyuki…” she whispered, and his heart gave a strange little leap.

“ _Ichika_.” He didn’t even register that he’d spoken until the tears started tumbling down her cheeks. She took a tentative step forward, like she thought he might be a ghost, before launching herself into his arms with a surprising amount of force. It nearly toppled him over, but it also gave him an excuse to hold her tightly for a little longer than strictly necessary. They were still under observation. No doubt Ichika had been questioned and cleared of suspicion despite the nature of their relationship, but the rest of the world didn’t need to know about them just yet. It was the easiest way to keep her safe.

“No reason to cry,” he said softly, patting her back.

“You’re crying, too,” she said, giving a weak little laugh that turned into a hiccup. Shiraishi blinked, bringing a hand up to touch his cheek. It came away wet. He reluctantly let go of Ichika, wanting more of her touch after so long. Ichika smiled widely as she scrambled around picking up papers. “Are you going to lunch?”

“I was. Turns out that if people feed you meals regularly, it eventually affects your eating habits.” Shiraishi noticed the guards behind him exchanging looks, but ignored them. The only people who knew about Ichika’s weekly visits were the staff at the prison, the boys at the office, and Minegishi. They had no real reason to suspect anything.

Probably.

“Good to see your sense of humor is intact,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Let me turn in these reports and I’ll go with you. You can update me on… your transfer.”

“I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Most of the office knew the truth about Ichika’s coma at the hands of Adonis, but very few understood the true extent of Shiraishi’s involvement in the situation. It seemed like Minegishi wanted to keep it that way, at least for now, as he’d arranged a cover story of a temporary transfer to another station. At this point, Shiraishi didn’t know if it was to protect Ichika from any potential suspicion or allegations and she adjusted to the workplace again, or if it was because Minegishi anticipated needing him as a profiler again. More than likely, it was a bit of both.

Either way, it was his opportunity for a fresh start, and he was damn well going to make the most of it.

~xXx~

“Why does it seem like everything with us always revolves around Christmas?” Ichika asked. It was their first date out without surveillance, a little over four years after they first met. Tomorrow was Christmas morning, but tonight the air was so cold you could see your breath, and show was falling gently around them as they walked through the park near the station.

“I blame you and your determination to make Christmas memories.” Shiraishi shrugged, taking her gloved hand in his own. It felt wonderful to be alone with her, not having to worry about carefully measured displays of affection or sneaking kisses around the station. Everyone had essentially figured it out by now, but he’d wanted to wait until he was officially cleared of suspicion before letting the world know. Ichika had protested, of course, but reluctantly accepted that it was probably a good idea.

And he did want to let the world know. It was… odd. On a rational level, love wasn’t something that made sense. Chemically, yes, but his feelings went beyond a chemical attraction. Over time he’d learned that for all his rational reasoning and analysis of human behavior, perhaps this was something about himself that he should simply  _accept_.

Perhaps, just this once, it wasn’t necessary to analyze this.

After two years of jail time and rehabilitation, and one year of complete and total police supervision, the department had decided that Shiraishi was too little a risk and too much of an asset to the force to keep under surveillance. He still went to therapy once a week to keep a check on his mental state, but even though there was still progress to be made, the psych department agreed that he was doing well overall. The halfway house project was well underway, many of the Adonis brainwashing victims were making their way back into society, and on most days those few months of terror seemed very far away.

“What’s on your mind?” Shiraishi asked. She didn’t even have to ask how he knew any more.

“We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?” Ichika murmured, moving a little closer.

“Understatement,” Shiraishi said with a snort. Ichika elbowed him in the side, but she was smiling.

“It’s just… do you ever think about the future?” She squeezed his hand just a fraction tighter, avoiding his eyes. “It always seemed like something that was so distant and impossible before, but now things are really starting to look up, and I was just thinking that—”

“Stop right there,” he said suddenly, pressing a finger to her lips. Ichika stopped walking, looking up at him with wide eyes. “I know what you’re going to say—”

“How could you possibly—” She was bright red, but he kept going, voice just a little softer.

“Of  _course_  I think about the future, Ichika. I think about it all the time. I think about the station and where we’re going to be in a few years. I think about Shinjuku and returning to its former glory.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts and swallowing his pride. “I think about waking up beside you, and stepping around two cats.”

Shiraishi slowly moved to touch his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling in the cold air. It was now or never, and he wasn’t about to let her say it first.

“Marry me.”

“No fair, Kageyuki,” Ichika muttered. “I wanted to ask you.” She stood on her toes and kissed him before he could respond, holding him so tightly that it hurt, but he never wanted her to let go.

“Yes,” she whispered between kisses. “Yes, yes,  _yes_ , I’ll marry you.”

Shiraishi slowly removed her glove and took the ring from his pocket, slipping the simple silver and garnet band on her finger. She only glanced at it for a moment before her eyes came right back up to his face, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry too much,” he said softly, pulling her close and kissing her forehead. “They’ll think something’s wrong when we show up for the Christmas party tomorrow and you have red, puffy eyes.”

“I love you,” she said, voice choked from tears and muffled against his chest.

“I love you, too, Ichika.”

In all his life, he’d never dreamed of this kind of fresh start. There was still a long road ahead of them filled with burdens and laughter and smiles and tears, and Shiraishi could not think of anything he wanted more than to share it with her.


End file.
